Clemson’s Women Step into Top Three for First Time with New DI Rankings

NEW ORLEANS – As we near the halfway point of the collegiate indoor track & field season, the national-podium race is starting to heat up. While the top three men’s teams in the latest USTFCCCA National Team Rankings remained unchanged for the third-straight week, Clemson’s women made their first-ever appearance in the national top three.  

National Ranking PDFs: Top 25 | Full by Team | Event-by-Event | Week-by-Week
Regional Index PDFs:Top 15 by Region | Full by Team | Event-by-Event
Previous Rankings

For the nation’s women, No. 1 Oregon and No. 2 LSU are still among the elite. The Ducks sat idle last weekend while LSU finished third at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational. The winners of the women’s team title at the NBCI was now-No. 3 Clemson, who crushed the field with a 29-point victory over nearest challenger No. 7 BYU.

Clemson’s NCAA-podium hopes continue to grow as junior Stormy Kendrick clocked a collegiate-leading 60 meter time of 7.22 last weekend. Freshman Dezerea Bryant is in a tie for third among 60-meter times this season with a 7.25 showing a few weeks ago. In addition, junior Marlena Wesh currently has the collegiate-leading time in the 400 meters after blazing a 52.21 last weekend. Tigers Brianna Rollins and Bridgette Owens own co-leading spots in the collegiate ranks this season with a pair of 7.97 hurdle times. Throw in the nation’s leading 4×400 relay time of 3:34.97, and Clemson is poised for a run at the podium and more. Clemson last had a national top-four finish in 2001, finishing third during the indoor season.

Georgia leapt six spots to No. 13, helped by the performance of freshman Morgann Leleux in the pole vault. The Bulldog cleared 14-4½ (4.38m) in the vault – the second-best performance in the NCAA this season – and attempted a collegiate-record height of 14-11½ (4.56m) at Virginia Tech’s Elite Meet.

Kansas moved into the national top 25 for the first time this season, landing at No. 24. The move helped the Big 12 to a nation-leading seven schools in the top 25 among conferences. And, for the first time this year, the Big 12 (455.01) has a higher conference index than the SEC (454.21).

On the men’s side, there has been no change to the top seven squads – still No. 1 Arkansas, No. 2 LSU, No. 3 LSU, No. 4 Texas, No. 5 Arizona, No. 6 Florida State, and No. 7 Stanford. Arkansas was idle this past weekend while Florida gained some ground on their SEC rivals. Omar Craddock (triple jump) and Kemal Mesic (shot put) produced collegiate-leading marks last weekend for the Gators.

Texas A&M continues to climb and are now at No. 8 after clocking the nation’s leading distance medley relay time (9:29.71) and winning the men’s team title at the NBCI. Henry Lelei was the hero for the Aggies as he anchored the DMR squad and won the Mile the next day.

Virginia Tech is in the top ten for the first time this season at No. 9 after Marcel Lomnicky and Alexander Ziegler captured the top two spots in the nation with 75-foot-plus marks in the weight throw.

The SEC continues to be the dominant conference on the men’s side, having all three teams in the nation’s top three and seven in the top 25. The Big Ten has six in the top 25.

Outside of the championship weekends, the second weekend in February traditionally is one of the strongest in collegiate indoor track & field for qualifying marks and out-of-conference competition. Beginning next week, national rankings will use only marks from the 2012 season (with the exception of combined events). The next round of computer rankings will be released on February 14.

The 2012 NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships will be held in Nampa, Idaho, on March 9-10.

About the Rankings

For more on the rankings and links to guideline and rationale information visit …
/rankings/division-i-rankings

The purpose and methodology of the national team computer rankings is to create an index that showcases the teams that have the best potential of achieving the top spots in the national-title race – not as a method to compare teams head-to-head.

The Regional Index is determined using a similar method as national rankings, but on a smaller scale, comparing teams versus others within the same region. The result is a ranking that showcases squads with better all-around team potential — a group makeup critical for conference or similar team-scored events. A team may achieve a better regional ranking than a counterpart that has a better national ranking. Historically, some teams are better national-championship teams than conference-championship teams, having a few elite athletes that score very well in a diverse environment where teams do not have entries in more than a few events. Some teams are better at conference championships or similar team-scored events where they enter, and are competitive, in many of the events.

How a team fares in a national championship, conference championship, or scored meet with only a couple or few teams (like a dual or triangular) can be very different, given the number of events, competition, scoring, and makeup of entries — thus the rationale behind each of the ranking systems. Similar arguments about team makeup and rankings can also be found in swimming & diving and wrestling as their sports also have a similar trichotomy when it comes to team theory.